Book Review: Working Therapeutically with Women in Secure Mental Health Settings
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200500029 |
| Published date | 01 September 2005 |
| Pages | 40-40 |
| Date | 01 September 2005 |
| Author | Janet Parrott |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
to offending, the criminal justice system and prison,
and there is an informative chapter on women and risk
with a lucid explanation of the use of standardised risk
assessments as an aid to good clinical practice.
Discussion relating to whether women’s services are
merely responding to an under-provision of those
psychological interventions required for the treatment
of complex mental disorders, especially those caused
by the experience of trauma, rather than gender-
specific variables, will be of great interest.
The five chapters comprising the ‘practice’ section
of the book emphasise the need for reflective practice
and staffsupport. Three of the articles document the
experience of women users and staff in group settings
within psychodynamic explanatory models and
although in themselves these are of considerable
interest I would have welcomed more detail on how
teams can also integrate cognitive behavioural
approaches. The most prominent omission is an
account of the barriers faced by women in secure
mental health careat the interface with social services
and an account of social work practice, particularly
whereateam is supporting a woman in sustaining her
parenting of a child.
Service development, training and gender specific
advocacy are ably dealt with and references provide a
good range of further reading. The editors have
successfully maintained a readable and thought-
provoking style in a multi-author text and the book can
be recommended to all mental health professionals in
this field.
Janet Parrott
Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist
Clinical Director
Bracton Centre, Bexley Hospital
References
Department of Health (2002) Women’s Mental Health:
Into the Mainstream. Strategic Development of Mental
Health Care for Women.London: Department of Health.
here have been growing concerns in
recent years over our understanding of women’s needs
in mental health services and, in particular, the
difficulties found by women users and staff in secure
mental health settings. Women’s Mental Health: Into the
Mainstream (Department of Health, 2002) highlighted
and set the scene for the development of specialised
women’s services throughout the UK. Teams working
in such settings have been keen to develop the
approaches and competencies required to understand
and best meet women’sneeds and the book grew out
of the authors’ experiences of working with a ward-
based women’s group. This book provides welcome
guidance as well as stimulating discussion.
The editors have presented a series of chapters by
different authors, broadly categorised under three
sections: theorybuilding, practice, and service
development. The theorysection commences with an
excellent overview of models of thinking about the
needs of women in secure settings. There is an
emphasis on the social and relational context of
difficult behaviours and underlying emotions within
the community of the ward setting and within wider
systems including that of the host institution. The
authors support the premise that an awareness of both
internalised and real world relationships informed by
the perspectives of attachment theory is essential to
informcare and help staff survive the emotional
demands of working in such a service.
The chapter on pathways into and through secure
mental health services focuses on the damaging
experiences and social inequalities that formthe most
usual milestones on the path to secure mental health
care. The authors’ view that very little is known about
those women who have moved out of securecareto
the community does not sit readily with the experience
of local forensic services, where staff have the privilege
of working with many women who have successfully
made this transition, but this view does reflect the
paucity of literature in this area.
The book offers a good review of women in relation
T
40 The Mental Health Review Volume 10 Issue 3 September 2005 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2005
Book Review
Working Therapeutically with Women in Secure Mental
Health Settings
Nikki Jeffcote and Tessa Watson (Eds)
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers (2004)
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